Finished. . .Finally!

Well, my Ocean Waves quilt is finally finished and I am really happy with how it turned out and ready to move on! 

I still have lots to do as far as decorating/re-decorating our bedroom goes, but this quilt was probably the most labor intensive part of the project, so now I feel like I can officially BEGIN with the rest of my to-do list now that this is done.  I started this quilt in mid-December and have put off so many other things these last few months in order to stay focused on this quilt.  But now I am really ready to play catch up, including a major spring cleaning of our house.

I did get my Bernina 710 back in time to finish the quilt.  I had probably done about 80% of the quilting with my old 440 and it worked great through the entire process.  But having the 710 and the extra space under the arm made a world of difference!  I could easily quilt the feathered wreaths in the center of the quilt without cramming the rest of the quilt under the machine.  It was wonderful!  And between free-motion quilting and straight line quilting with the walking foot, I had no issues with the Invisafil thread shredding this time around.  Hooray! 

For those of you that are curious, the upper thread is Invisafil (100% polyester, 100 weight, very fine) and the bobbin thread is Mettler Metrosene (100% polyester, fine).   The batting is Hobb's Heirloom 80% cotton/20% polyester.  I use this batting predominately because I really like a flat, crinkled, vintage look.  I did wash the quilt prior to binding it.  I know many quilters have made the transition over to the wool battings but I have yet to do so.  Something about wool in Florida just doesn't sound appealing to me!  But I do think the quilts that are quilted with the wool battings are just spectacular and I will probably eventually try one just to see if I like it.

All the straight lines, the two cable borders, and the straight lines behind the large feathered border were done with a walking foot.  The feathered wreaths in the white squares and feathered border were all free-motioned.  I did use the Schmetz #75/11 quilting needle and I did slow down my quilting speed.  I also lowered my tension even more than what my dealer suggested.  Part of the reason for this is that I used a pale pink thread in the bobbin to match the backing and with the tension set at 3.0, I could see little pink dots of thread coming to the top of the quilt in the holes the needle left behind.  So for free-motion quilting I set the tension down to 2.0 and for walking foot quilting, I set the tension at 2.25.  The stitch quality looks fine on both the front and back and this eliminated any bobbin thread from showing on the top side.  I did not have a single thread breakage!  Back to being a happy quilter!

And I just want to thank those of you that cheered me on for my perseverance!  I appreciate the support!  I'm sure you've all been in a situation at least once where you keep asking yourself, why the heck am I going to so much trouble and aggravation??  But the extra effort is generally worth it in the end and I will admit that I really am happy with the way this turned out.

And one last thank you. . . .I LOVE all of the comments and e-mails you all are sending me and I am just so overwhelmed at the response I've gotten from all of you!  I know I don't blog nearly as often as many popular bloggers do, but I really do appreciate your loyalty and sticking around in spite of that.  You really have no idea how broad of an audience you have when you blog, there are stats you can check to see how many hits a post gets, but as far as readership, I am truly clueless as to how big of an audience I have.  Sometimes I wish I could take a roll call!  But it is just so reassuring to have real live feedback from you and it lets me know that I am not just writing to some void in outer space!  So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading, commenting, and for your support!  Hugs to all of you! 

I may be gone for a bit longer between posts since I have tons to catch up on, but don't worry, I will update you as soon as I have something to show you again.  Happy Quilting. . .

Bedroom Decorating

I thought I would share a little bit about our bedroom, so I thought I would let you all in for a peek!

As you probably know, I am currently in the process (and a very LONG process at that!) of making an Ocean Waves quilt for our bed.  It is going to be the inspiration for, what I hope to be, a new look for our bedroom.  It may take me awhile to get it all together and complete it, but in the mean time, I will show you what our bed currently looks like so you can see the "before" look.

I have had a Ralph Lauren comforter that I have been in love with for years and this originally set the tone and look for our bed.  I made the nine-patch quilt using these colors as my inspiration.  I also collect vintage floral fabrics and they happened to work perfectly with the colors and look as pillows for our bed.

I used an extra flat sheet and made the Euro pillow shams to match the comforter.  Our wrought iron bed frame is not an antique one, but I still love the look.  However it has turned color!  It used to be very white, now it's sort of an ecru.  This is one of the reasons (among others) that I am wanting to change things up a bit.

As a quilter, it's always about the quilts!  I like to constantly change things out but I always keep things flowery and colorful.  I love pattern on pattern, especially anything with vintage-style roses, and I love soft, pretty, vintage colors, and I love busy.  I try not to get too caught up in the matchy-matchy look and just keep putting things together until it "works."  And yes, I make the bed every morning!  I cannot stand an unmade bed!

Here is the "new" look I am aiming towards, although it could change at any minute!  The blue floral is a vintage drapery fabric, the pink is an old Ralph Lauren fabric and the stripe is a home dec fabric I bought on eBay years ago and have been saving for the perfect project.  I guess you could say I am going a bit bolder with color, although all of my accents and furniture pieces will be whites and off-whites.  Hopefully the color won't be too bold and the overall look will still be soft with accents of color.  We'll see!  I am still hunting for a stripe or ticking to coordinate. I will have to complete the quilt and pillows and then make a decision once it is all put together.

In the mean time, I am hoping to start machine quilting my Ocean Waves soon, the marking is just about completed.  It's a lot of work, I forgot how much time goes into such a huge quilt!  I will show more photos once I make some progress.  Until next time, Happy Quilting!